If anyone has the time I’d really appreciate an honest critique of my listings and some advice. The last time I was selling on Folksy was in about 2018, as I was lured to the dark side for about a year (selling old craft supplies and books and it just made sense to put other listings on there at the same time) and then came covid, the aftermath and other projects! However, I have returned.
I’ve tried to remember tips like using tags and being aware of what words are used for titles, I’ve taken photos with a plain background, and I’ve priced my items realistically (without charging so much an hour because otherwise some things would just be a ridiculous price!)
I’ve also used ‘sections’ and am wondering if what I’ve created are what people would look at, or have I put too many in?
I am wondering if by not listing very regularly this will affect anything? I don’t get much time to spend on Folksy stuff, and have to write drafts over a few days and take a few pictures whenever I think the light will be O.K, etc before I can actually list things.
I have put some of my things on Pinterest. Does anyone else find doing this helpful to them or would it be better using another platform. I do use instagram but not advertised anything on, as I don’t want it flagged up as a ‘business’ page. I have thought about tik-tok but am not video confident, and again, would it be flagged up as a business page? I’ve discovered there’s no point in my using twitter as I hardly ever get noticed on there.
Of course, family usually say nice things, but I would like an unbiased opinion! Any feedback/advice would be immensely appreciated as I know time is precious!
welcome back.
The first thing I looked at was a card featuring a dress pattern and nowhere does it say the size of the card…
You probably also need to put “Blank inside” so that people know if there is an inner message or not…
only a personal thing but I don’t think I would have sections for colours. It is enough to say, wallets,cards, bags cravats etc.
The shop looks fine to me…good luck
Ah! I never thought about putting the size of the card, and the phrase ‘Blank Inside’ makes sense!
Thank you for taking the time to look! (Also just deleted the colour sections!)
Everything looks fine. Of course there will probably be a few teething problems but I would say get your shop active and on the go - any alterations can be done as needed. All the usual advice applies - check out all the Folksy resources (especially as things have changed a bit over the last few years) and have a look at other peoples shop for some inspiration on photo presentation, pricing and description. Good luck.
Thank you!
(I just found a post about Pinterest so I’ll be following that advice asap!)
Check out the Folksy blog, they give advice there on how to improve your listings etc and how best to be found/seen. Double check the date of the post though (it should say somewhere), as there are old blog articles with advice that is somewhat out of date.
I’m also a returner - I kept my Folksy shop but neglected it while I focused on E. Now I’m back doing it in reverse. Took me a while to realise I needed to shift my thinking.
Best bit of advice I can give you, is it doesn’t work like the dark side, and also it isn’t the same as it was when you left.
You don’t need to post loads of new things all the time, but adding new ones or relisting an old one now and again is good as it keeps your shop fresh. But you definitely don’t need to keep relisting the stock everyday like we used too - search is much more powerful now and will find you even if the listing is not the latest. So focus on titles, descriptions and tags (and photos).
Hi - welcome back. You have some nice things but the photos are quite dark. I think your items would look better if you perhaps removed the background and lightened up the photo a bit.
I use the Photo room and Snapseed Apps.
This is what I was going to say too, I think your colours would really pop if the photos were lighter. Another vote for Photo Room also, I’m still learning how to use it but it’s so versatile and with loads of backgrounds. Free too!
I really like your mix of products and clever construction, your record bags are very unusual.
Thank you, I shall certainly have a look at the blog. It’s good to know I don’t have to keep posting things, I’d never be able to keep up!
Thanks for that advice, the lighting in our house is terrible, it takes ages to find the right angle to get maximum natural light and no shadow, after four o’clock there’s no chance! Photo lightening is a good idea!
I’m going to have to get my head around that program! Sounds like it will be a big help. I usually spend ages trying to find the lightest place in the house and standing at different angles with paper back-drop, something like this will save me a lot of time I’m thinking, (and make my pictures hopefully look a lot better too!) Thank you for the compliments too! 
With regard to collections - my suggestion is to keep it to 6 - that then displays as a single line on a PC or 2 rows of 3 on a phone. I’ve given up looking in some shops as there have been soooo many collections that I lost the will to carry on looking for the right one (and then there was all the scrolling that I had to do to get through the collections to look at the actual products).
The major change that would have happened whilst you were away would have been to the search algorithm. Much more importance is now placed on the title than before and more crucially the beginning of the title. So to rank highly in the search results you need to have the phrase that people are most likely to search with at the beginning of the title, you might want to try experimenting with rejigging your titles to see how they do in searches. (run a search of ‘rockabilly’ to see what I mean about the importance of word placement)
Finally - to help brighten photos a reflector is really helpful to bounce light back on to the item to get rid of shadows. Doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, a (large) piece of white card works fine, I use an A4 sheet of foam board covered in foil that had been scrunched up and smoothed out a few times (specifically the foil from an easter egg, not sure if you could buy yourself one and call it a business expense but if some one gets you one keep the foil!).
Good luck.
My friend is a cardmaker so I begged a spare bit of mirror card to use as a reflector. I’m not sure whether it worked all that well, so I’m still playing with it to see how it goes.
Not sure how glossy mirror card is but with foil if its too smooth you get bright spots and it works better (for me at least) if its been scrunched and smoothed out a few times.
I never thought about how it would display on a phone as I use my laptop for nearly everything! This is helpful, thank you. I like the idea about a light reflector too, and I’m going to look at my search titles. Good advice for me to follow, thank you!